Bill Harris founded Facilitated Systems in 1999 to help people by helping the organizations in which they spend so much of their time. He uses a number of approaches to help them make sense of the puzzles and problems organizations face.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Recognizing one's errors

My first reaction is that no one here is subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect; we're brighter than the bank robber described in their first example. My subsequent thought is that I may be letting us off the hook too easily; perhaps we're all subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect in the right domain. None (well, perhaps darn few) of us are highly competent in everything, but we still may be tempted to make pronouncements in knowledge domains where our expertise lags that of our peers. That conclusion is scarier. Knowing oneself is apparently not easy.

How do we get around this problem? As best as I can see, life-long learning plays a key role, for it fits with their prediction 4. I suspect careful observation and reflection can help, too, for that might help us recognize our abilities.